


Look at Me, Feel Me

by Arenoptara



Series: Jearmin Week 2014 [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim, F/F, Jaeger Pilots, Jaegers, Jearmin Week, The Drift (Pacific Rim), fem!jearmin, i'm making a stretch and considering the Drift almost as a lucid dream, lucid dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1959093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arenoptara/pseuds/Arenoptara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armine and Jeanne Drift for the first time and it goes smoothly. However, a nightmare haunts Armine during their second test Drift and they almost lose everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look at Me, Feel Me

The Drift is more a dream than real dreams. She'd been told to expect memories, but experiencing them like she never had before. The Drift looked foggier than San Francisco. So many images and feelings bombarded Armine's body and mind—Jeanne's particularly potent. But it _felt_ sharp. Everything processed like she had two brains—technically she did. The other was Jeanne's.

The first time they drifted, they made it through okay. Armine actually savored every bit of information she processed. There was Jeanne, the day she got her tattoo on a dare from someone named Ymir. It sparked her love for Cerberus. She even added to it over the years, every time something happened of note. Her first kiss with a freckled boy named Marco, who had piloted his own jaeger until he died in an accident. Didn't even have a chance to go against a kaiju.

And there was also the day Jeanne'd wrestled Eren into the ground, and when she thought she'd won, he flipped her around and pinned her down for good—he now piloted Maria Rogue with Mikasa Ackerman in Japan.

There was the time she killed an attacking bear on a camping trip. The weeks after she'd felt so guilty, but knowing if she hadn't pulled the trigger she and her mother would have died let her get over it.

When she met Armine in the trials. How they instantly clicked but Jeanne was so eager to finish their tests in private where an instructor couldn't stop them, and they ended up lying on the floor half-drunk, talking about how they imagined their impending deaths. Armine said she'd die from kaiju blue, and Jeanne decided she would go when the jaeger tech overloaded and fried her brain.

Once they sobered up, they got real quiet. Neither wanted to die. Jeanne almost quit right there just thinking about it—Armine only found out once they drifted. How Jeanne only decided to stay for Armine. How that blondie with the cute nose, her profile staring at the metal ceiling in that dank room with a sort of romantic melancholy look, had changed her mind because Jeanne didn't want to let her down.

“When the kaijus are gone,” Jeanne promised though Armine had fallen asleep, “you'll have enough money to travel the world like you always wanted. And then you can settle down somewhere nice and quiet. By the ocean. You love the ocean . . .”

But it wasn't all one-sided. Connected together, Armine couldn't hide how she wanted to marry Jeanne. When it was all over. Side-by-side—no, fused—they watched it play out in perfect detail, because Armine was so thorough when it came to things. But she didn't feel embarrassed, because she was with Jeanne, and they understood each other now more than they ever had before.

The second time they drifted, the last before their jaeger Cerberus Rose went into action against the kaijus, it almost fell apart. The Drift awoke Armine's dream of the night just before—the day the kaijus attacked San Francisco. How her house had crumbled under the foot of a kaiju while she'd watched from a moving truck, powerless to help. Her parents had pushed her out to safety, staying behind to find their research data, the data they'd collected for years on the tectonic rifts on the bottom of the ocean. They never predicted the coming of the kaijus, but their research could have helped. But they had taken too long.

Three years later Armine joined the jaeger program. And four years after that she prepared to avenge her parents, to give their deaths a meaning, with the help of her closest friend Jeanne.

In her dream she'd watched the kaijus destroy her home over and over again until it twisted and she was inside, watching her minds imagined version of the Arlerts' last moments. The sluggish atmosphere of the dream universe left her immobile, just as powerless to help them as the actual day.

That returned, the memory of a dream, but made so clear and real through the Drift. Her mind broke away from Jeanne's and she watched those twenty seconds over and over, while somewhere Jeanne's voice, muffled as if by water, called out to her, but speaking a language Armine didn't know.

“Armine! Armine! Look at me! At me!”

The kaiju left nothing of her parents behind. The beast weighed too much. _Smashed to nothing . . . Is this what ants go through?_ Armine thought helplessly as the scene restarted.

Not even the dog had made it that day. He'd never much cared for Armine. When she'd tried to take him away, he squirmed out of her arms and ran back to them.

So alone until Jeanne met her . . .

_Still talking . . . what are you saying, Jeanne? Can't you see this . . .?_

Someone put their hand on her shoulder.

“Armine. Look at me. Feel me. What's real. What's now.”

_What are you saying, Jeanne? Look at what's happening. How do we stop . . .?_

Armine walked forward. If she couldn't stop the kaiju, she could die with her family. They were meant to be together. There was no Earth without them. She wrapped her arms around her mother as the older woman searched through egregious amounts of paper. To the left, her dad shouted something.

_I'm here. Can you feel me? Mom?_

“Armine! Feel me! See me! I'm right here, Armine, right here!” The hand still rested on her shoulder.

_Is that yours, Jeanne? Are you going to die with us too?_

The kaiju roared. Any second now it'd crash down.

“Feel _me_ Armine! _I'm_ real!”

_Real . . . this is real . . ._ She squeezed tighter on her mother's waist. _This is--_

“Not real! Armine! Turn around. Take control. Turn around!”

_Mom, why can't you see me? I'm--_

“Right here! I'm right here, Armine. Just look at me. This is not--”

_Real. Not real? That hand . . . Jeanne, you need to get out of here._ Armine pulled away from her mother and turned. Just as the roof caved in, she saw Jeanne's face: the wide mocha eyes; the dusty blonde hair on top, untamed, and the buzzed dark brown on the sides; the sharp jaw . . . _cheekbones . . . stupid, long pointy nose . . . Cerberus tattoo along the right side of her face, close to the hairline . . ._

The sun vanished—the shadow of a kaiju. Its leg came down. Armine took her eyes off Jeanne to watch. That's when Jeanne-- _Real . . ._ \--took her face and kissed her, bringing her to Jeanne, to a campsite in the redwood forest, to s'mores all over her chubby little face. And then the Los Angeles Shatterdome, where they first met for trials. Where they first saw Cerberus Rose. Built for them. Their jaeger. Their home.

Armine jerked to the left and opened her eyes, staring ahead through the eyes of Cerberus. Control discontinued the connection, and with one blink she was staring out her own eyes alone. Thinking with her own mind alone. She looked over at Jeanne, who had bent over, panting.

“I'm sorry,” Armine croaked out.

Jeanne shook her head. “This is what this is for.”

Armine looked down at a gloved hand and curled it into a fist. “It won't happen again.”

Jeanne pulled her helmet off and rubbed the back of her neck.

More slowly, Armine took hers off and held it under her arm. She avoided Jeanne's eyes as the other walked over. Just like in the Drift, Jeanne put her hand on Armine's shoulder.

“Connect again,” Armine murmured.

“Ar--”

She lifted her eyes to Jeanne. “Connect again. I won't get lost.”

Jeanne glanced over to the command center on the screen as Hange said over the com, “Levi says no, but he's not in charge. Arlert, if you're sure--”

Armine raised her helmet and snapped it on. “I am.”

With a squeeze, Jeanne said, “Remember what's real.” She positioned herself again and slipped on her helmet. 

Just before they drifted, Armine looked over at her and said, “We're real.”

That third drift sailed on without a hitch. Jeanne kept her in the now, linked to reality when dreams threatened her control. The drift became the safe dream. The one she could control. Because her best friend was there, working with her. Fighting with her. 

Three days later command located a kaiju located seventeen miles off the coast of Los Angeles.

“You okay?” they asked each other on the way to Cerberus Rose.

“You cut your hair,” Armine said with a frown.

The ponytail was gone. “I like it short.” 

They stopped, waiting for the door to open. Jeanne reached out and touched Armine's shoulder-length hair with a smile. The metal clanged open, and they separated, taking their positions, locking their feet in, and sealing their helmets on. Ever since she learned Marco had died on the right, Jeanne went left. Armine said she'd be all right for her. A bad joke. Armine made many.

“They're calling your new friend Turtle Shell,” Hange said over the com. “First time's always the hardest. Remember your training, your sim scores, and go out there and kicks its ass.”

“Will do,” Armine said quietly.

“Maybe I'll get my tattoo started down my neck?” Jeanne said with a grin.

Armine smiled faintly.

“We must be damn fools, Armine.”

“Activating Drift in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .”

The dream swirled around, blue and foggy and cold. The kaiju crushed the house. Jeanne shot the bear. But they came back to the real, minds and body synced. Their arms lifted, testing the connection with the machine. 

_If you find yourself slipping--_

_I won't slip._

_Then let's kill this--_

_Kaiju bastard._

_Kaiju bastard._

**Author's Note:**

> Collab with breezy [(Companion Artwork)](http://breezerkawaiiart.tumblr.com/post/91836682332/jearmin-week-day-2-lucid-dream-fem-jearmin)


End file.
